Here is my take on skills related to Naval adventuring and combat - they are from the RAW - no new skills (only new specialisations and a sub-skill under Tradecraft (Seafaring):

Ship-related skills

Tradecraft (Ag or Int): Seafaring

Seafaring Specialisation options: Sailing, Rigging, Ship Repair

Nature Lore (Int) Specialisation: Weather Prediction, Fishing

Folklore (Int) Specialisation: S ea Creatures, Legendary Lands

Education (Int) Specialisations: Navigation, Geography

Ballistics (Ag) Specialisation: Ship Gunnery

I also created rules for ship cards as "items" with rules for Naval weapons (cannon, heavy bolt throwers, etc). Here is a sample ship card, created with Strange Eons computer application, for a Dark Elf Corsair ship:

I'll post more if anyone cares.

Shouldn't ships be location cards and weapons of a ship be item cards. So you will be able to exchange the weaponary of ships.

I am going to keep the ship as an item and not a location. Other items that work with it (such as optional weapons or special crew, marines, etc.) will be listed on the ship item card.

The way I see it is that PCs will use special action cards to fire ship weapons and pull ship manuevers - such as "broadside" for a special ranged shot. The line weapons chart on the ship item card represents modifiers from firing the main port/starboard mounted weaponry on board.

Have you considered making a 'Ship' more like a character card (or even a NPC type layout), with slots for talents, special crew actions, etc?

Also possibly including a set of 'Action' cards for the 'Ship character'.

To me this could be a way to readily create a variety of different ships, barges, boats, canoes, etc.

These are just thoughts and ramblings, as I was toying with the idea of using the Rogue Trader ship construction rules for making WHFRP ships for the 2nd ed before the 3rd ed came out. I was going to replace the Ship Point cost with Gold cost, and require each different hull type to fulfill certain prerequisites with regard to propulsion, crew, etc. The idea behind this was to create ships that were distinguishable from each other, possibly with a 'history', and the fact that you could upgrade crews, officers, armaments, etc.

Alp

alp said:

I considered something like that after reading this topic.

Ship card with base ship description as a base, and attached talents for weapons and alike.

Unfortunately I know nothing about ships.

But. If You provide the rules, and tell me what do You need, and how it should look like (some layout propositions, and graphics I can use would be nice), then I can provide a SE plugin for it.

PS: I'm going on vacation this saturday, so I can start working on it when I get back

The Dark Elf Corsair card is an item (see original post) card with a trait of "ship." The line weapon is the default weapon and optional weapons are other item cards so the weapon system for ships is somewhat modular and flexible.

The crew size is given to indicate a starting point for a progress track in melee - for example every 30 crew would be a space on a progress track so if there was an enemy ship in melee/grappeled to the PC ship with friendly crew, each bane rolled in PC actions would be a move (friendly ship crew casualties) of a progress marker on the track - correspondingly, each boon would be a move of enemy ship crew marker on the progress track to represent large scale ship-to-ship melee boarding combat.

The fortune and misfortune dice track under the Line Weapons represents those dice rolled in any weapon actions at a certain hull strength, as shown by the number below the dice symbol. For example, using the Dark Elf Corsair chart, at a hull strength of 8, two fortune dice (cumulative from the left side of the black vertical mark) would be rolled in addition to regular dice for a ranged weapon action or ship special action such as "fire broadsides." As the ship starts to take damage and the hull points diminish, misfortune dice are added - for example using the Corsair again; when the hull strength reaches 3 (or less) two misfortune dice PLUS one challenge die are rolled for ranged weapon actions. This represents loss of crew, morale problems, ship damage, and ammo distribution failure and weapon malfunctions.

Just a thought anyway - I plan to use the system in my campaigns for fast ship combat. Note: PCs use their basic ranged weapon action card to fire ship line weapons, but there are other action cards for ship ranged attacks such as fire broadsides, crossing the "T" or manuever advantage, etc.)

Lastly, in addition to regular damage resulting in loss of hull points (regular "wounds"), there needs to be a set of ship "critical" cards to represent on-board fires, uncontrolled flooding, loss of rudder/sails, etc, and of course, a catastrophic explosion!

Ship cards similar in format to character cards ( as suggested above ) with slots works too IMO. I can still use the Line Weapons and any other optional weapons as slotted items.

Also need optional weapons for Dwarfen Torpedos, different sizes of bow -mounted rams, boarding party "marines" , etc.

Lastly, the number "3" in the Dark Elf Corsair card above represents how many good, active hull points are needed to perform one manuever - so in this case, the Corsair can move three manuevers at its starting hull point value of 9, but if the Corsair is down to just 4 hull points, it can only take one (1) maneuver.

Sample action card for ships "Broadside" created with Strange Eons

There is a Navigator career card in my Winds of Magic set with Observation as a career skill.

Seems like Navigation can be a specialisation under Observation in order to stay closer to the rules.

I suppose I always viewed Warhammer ships to be closer to the forcastle/aftcastle weapons era than the "broadside" era. A period where a handfull of ballistae or cannon were mounted as chase weapons in large raised areas at the prow and stern and boarding was the primary deciding action. Does anyone have any published fluff or imagery that clears this up?